Oak Bluffs selectmen this week discussed concerns about delivery traffic at the Camp Ground and fielded complaints about the Martha's Vineyard Craft Beer Festival.
The first craft beer festival, which featured beers from dozens of craft brewers, music, and food, was held Sept. 24 at Washington Park.
At Tuesday’s board meeting Veronica Lytle, whose Chapman avenue home abuts Washington Park, was blunt in her distress over the noise and drinking.
“It was horrible,” Ms. Lytle said. “The music was unbelievable, the amount of people was unbelievable. We were told this was like a wine tasting. They kept pouring and pouring and pouring.”
Selectman Greg Coogan said he checked out the event and spoke to the police officer assigned to the festival.
“It certainly had a big turn out, bigger than I expected,” Mr. Coogan said. “There are certainly things they could do better.”
Selectmen agreed to ask organizer Erin Bayer Santos and representatives of the Oak Bluffs police department to discuss the event at a future meeting.
Also Tuesday, selectmen discussed parking and delivery issues at the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association.
In a sharply-worded letter to board chairman Gail Barmakian, the president and a board member of the association asked selectmen to create more loading zones and prevent delivery trucks from parking in the Camp Ground while they make deliveries to Circuit avenue businesses.
“Being a good neighbor, the Camp Ground accepted for many years some level of truck traffic, but our neighborliness has been abused,” wrote Camp Meeting president Patricia Han and board member Frank Gould. “In retrospect, this show of neighborliness was a mistake by us. We have been unfairly put in the position of subsidizing the businesses of Circuit avenue. We can no longer allow this situation to continue.”
Selectman Michael Santoro said adding more loading zones to downtown streets should first be considered by the Oak Bluffs roads and byways committee, and the board did not discuss the loading zone issue in detail.
The board did talk about parking issues surrounding large events at the Tabernacle.
“One of the things we suggest when we do special events is we ask people to arrange to have people bused in,” said Mr. Santoro.
Camp Meeting Association executive director C.J. Rivard said the Camp Ground limits the number of large events.
“It’s not a weekly thing, but it is certainly enough to put pressure on parking all over town,” Ms. Rivard said. “The museum alone sees over 12,000 visitors by this time of year.”
Mr. Santoro said the town considers a park and ride facility outside of town a top goal.
“We’re looking for a short term solution in a year or two,” he said.
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